Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

September 7, 2008 By Fausta

The “Muslim faith” clip, and more important matters

The short clip:

Washington Monthly has the entire clip:

Does it matter what Obama’s religion is or isn’t? Even if the Dems compare Obama To Jesus Christ, Palin to Pontius Pilate? You know, Jesus the community organizer, vs. Pontius Pilate the governor?

Moe Lane explores the Pilate/Palin analogy.

In other Obama news, Richard Fernandez looks back in nostalgia at Obama’s community organizing days, and finds (emphasis added),

Obama, however, wanted to be President. So his departure from community organizing is fair enough. What is slightly underhand is his practice of donning the romantic mantle of the organizer, the champion of “lost causes” and using the image of the quixotic loser he rejected in private as his badge of honor. Maybe the contrast can explained by the fact that “community organizer” sounds better than “lawyer” or “politician”. But the differences go beyond the use of misleading imagery. They are philosophical. If the ‘people’ are too weak to seize power in the first place, then maybe they are too dull to understand what is good for them. And maybe they need Obama to tell them that.

The rest of us don’t.

UPDATE
Steve has more on community organizers and why Jesus wasn’t one.

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Filed Under: Barack Obama, Democrats, Election2008, politics, religion, Republicans Tagged With: Fausta's blog

June 27, 2008 By Fausta

UN ‘Human Rights Council’ bans criticism of Islam

Israel Matzav:

The UN ‘Human Rights Council’ decided this week that it is forbidden to criticize Islam because “religious issues can be “very complex, very sensitive and very intense…This council is not prepared to discuss religious matters in depth, consequently we should not do it.” From now on, only religious scholars would be permitted to broach ‘religious matters’ before the Council.

This means that any crimes committed by Islamists can not be addressed by the UN’s HRC. The Organization of Islamic Countries is the largest voting block at the UN.

While we can not criticize Islam, it’s OK to protest security measures on religious grounds:
And Now, Sniffer Dogs Are Offensive: Muslims travelling on trains from Brighton have objected to sniffer dogs being used to search them for drugs and bombs.

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Filed Under: Islam, religion, UN

June 17, 2008 By Fausta

Today at 11AM Eastern: Blog Talk Radio ALL-STARS panel!

Updated
You can listen to the podcast here

In today’s podcast, an all-star lineup:
Elizabeth Blackney of Media Lizzy, Jazz Shaw of Midstream Radio, Shane Burgess of Political Vindication, and Siggy will be discussing sexual mores in the West and in Islamic countries.

We’ll start by talking about Lisa Schiffren’s post Sex and the Single Muslim Girl, with a panel discussion, followed by conversation.

Chat’s open by 10:45AM, and the call-in number is 646 652-2639. Join us!

Listen to Faustas blog on internet talk radio

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Filed Under: Blog Talk Radio, female genital mutilation, FGM, podcasts, relationships, religion, Sex.

March 21, 2008 By Fausta

Good Friday Miserere


Psalm 51
David pleads for forgiveness after he went in to Bath-sheba—He pleads: Create in me a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within me.
TO THE CHIEF MUSICIAN, A PSALM OF DAVID, WHEN NATHAN THE PROPHET CAME UNTO HIM, AFTER HE HAD GONE IN TO BATH-SHEBA.
1 Have amercy upon me, O God, according to thy blovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies cblot out my dtransgressions.
2 Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and acleanse me from my sin.
3 For I aacknowledge my transgressions: and my bsin is ever before me.
4 Against thee, thee only, have I asinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be bjustified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.
5 Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother aconceive me.
6 Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.
7 Purge me with ahyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
8 Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.
9 Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities.
10 Create in me a aclean heart, O God; and brenew a right spirit within me.
11 Cast me not away from thy apresence; and take not thy bholy spirit from me.
12 Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.
13 Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be aconverted unto thee.
14 aDeliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation: and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness.
15 O Lord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise.
16 For thou desirest not asacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering.
17 The asacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a bcontrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.
18 Do good in thy good apleasure unto Zion: build thou the walls of Jerusalem.
19 Then shalt thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering: then shall they offer bullocks upon thine altar.

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Filed Under: Christianity, music, religion

February 15, 2008 By Fausta

Note to the Archibishop: British women are already suffering from Islamic law

COE Archibishop Rowan Williams declared (click on link for audio file) that integrating some aspects of Sharia law was inevitable in Britain.

Today Joan Smith explains that British women are already suffering from Islamic law (h/t Alcibiades):

As soon as you look at the actual operation of religious law in this country, the picture looks less rosy. Even if the Archbishop didn’t have in mind barbaric punishments such as stoning women to death for adultery, there is plenty of evidence that sharia courts are a means of consolidating patriarchal power in societies where Muslim women have begun to demand the same rights as men. The Department for Work and Pensions recently made an astonishing decision to pay state benefits to Muslim men for each of their wives, as long as the marriages were contracted legally abroad. Bigamy is illegal in Britain and the spectacle of the Government colluding in the practice of polygyny – not polygamy, for Muslim women cannot have four husbands – is a signal that ministers are losing their moral compass on the subject of women’s rights.

We are only just beginning to realise the extent of violence against women from ethnic minorities. Last week, Commander Steve Allen, who leads for the Association of Chief Police Officers on honour-based violence, gave evidence to the Home Affairs Committee. Responding to a question about whether forced marriage and “honour” crimes are under-reported in this country, Allen responded with a single word: “Massively”. He believes the real level of violence might be 35 times higher than the number of cases (around 500) reported each year to the police and the Foreign Office forced marriage unit.

If a woman is running away from her parents or a violent husband, mosques and sharia courts are not the obvious place for her to turn to get justice. The Centre for Social Cohesion study contains a startling insight into attitudes in one British mosque, reported by Mohamed Baleela, a team leader at the Domestic Violence Intervention Project in Hammersmith, west London. “Last time I talked about marital rape in a mosque,” he said, “I nearly got beaten up. Because we said that the law makes it illegal to rape your wife, someone got up and hit me because he was ignorant of the law.”

The most powerful argument, that all people in a country are subject to the same laws – indeed, that the rule of law applies to all – appears to be lost to the Archibishop, but not on Smith, who also points out that

indeed the European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2003 that sharia is incompatible with the fundamental principles of democracy and European values. Secular law protects people’s right to practise their religion, but it also protects them from aspects of their faith which are unjust and oppressive.

Too bad the Archibishop and his followers can’t seem to remember that; as you can listen in the above audio clip, he actually dismissed the European Court of Human Right’s decision.

Most disturbing of all, Williams believes that the law should be shaped by “individual affiliations” and “individual loyalties”, and believes that “a law that says that there’s a law for everybody and that’s all needs to be said” is “a bit of a danger”.

So long, rule of law.

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Filed Under: religion, UK

February 12, 2008 By Fausta

Look good for Jesus!

In what must be the most “out there” cosmetics campaign in recent years, someone in Singapore came up with a line of Lookin’ Good for Jesus cosmetics. The line included a “Virtuous vanilla” lip balm, which doesn’t sound too naughty but then the inuendo took over, and a “Get Tight with Christ” hand and body cream made it to the cosmetic counters. Let’s hope it doesn’t tingle.

The Catholics got upset and the company withdrew the products. If they had been in Latin America, they could have repackaged the whole line with a picture of heh-SOOS, some good looking guy with the same name as Jesus and they would have saved themselves the fuss.

I wonder what Ace and Laurie Kendrick would have to say about “Looking Good for Jesus”.

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Filed Under: fashion, humor, religion

January 7, 2008 By Fausta

Ayaan Hirsi Ali on reason vs. fanaticism, and the individual

In this week’s New York Times Book Review Ayan Hirsi Ali reviews Lee Harris’s The Suicide of Reason: Radical Islam’s Threat to the West.

In the book, Ayaan Hirsi Ali explains,

Harris is pessimistic in a way that the Enlightenment thinkers were not. He takes a Darwinian view of the struggle between clashing cultures, criticizing the West for an ethos of selfishness, and he follows Hegel in asserting that where the interest of the individual collides with that of the state, it is the state that should prevail. This is why he attributes such strength to Islamic fanaticism. The collectivity of the umma elevates the communal interest above that of the individual believer. Each Muslim is a slave, first of God, then of the caliphate. Although Harris does not condone this extreme subversion of the self, still a note of admiration seems to creep into his descriptions of Islam’s fierce solidarity, its adherence to tradition and the willingness of individual Muslims to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the greater good.

But this is what she has to say,

I was not born in the West. I was raised with the code of Islam, and from birth I was indoctrinated into a tribal mind-set. Yet I have changed, I have adopted the values of the Enlightenment, and as a result I have to live with the rejection of my native clan as well as the Islamic tribe. Why have I done so? Because in a tribal society, life is cruel and terrible. And I am not alone. Muslims have been migrating to the West in droves for decades now. They are in search of a better life. Yet their tribal and cultural constraints have traveled with them. And the multiculturalism and moral relativism that reign in the West have accommodated this.

Harris is correct, I believe, that many Western leaders are terribly confused about the Islamic world. They are woefully uninformed and often unwilling to confront the tribal nature of Islam. The problem, however, is not too much reason but too little. Harris also fails to address the enemies of reason within the West: religion and the Romantic movement. It is out of rejection of religion that the Enlightenment emerged; Romanticism was a revolt against reason.

Both the Romantic movement and organized religion have contributed a great deal to the arts and to the spirituality of the Western mind, but they share a hostility to modernity. Moral and cultural relativism (and their popular manifestation, multiculturalism) are the hallmarks of the Romantics. To argue that reason is the mother of the current mess the West is in is to miss the major impact this movement has had, first in the West and perhaps even more profoundly outside the West, particularly in Muslim lands.

Thus, it is not reason that accommodates and encourages the persistent segregation and tribalism of immigrant Muslim populations in the West. It is Romanticism. Multiculturalism and moral relativism promote an idealization of tribal life and have shown themselves to be impervious to empirical criticism. My reasons for reproaching today’s Western leaders are different from Harris’s. I see them squandering a great and vital opportunity to compete with the agents of radical Islam for the minds of Muslims, especially those within their borders. But to do so, they must allow reason to prevail over sentiment.

She concludes by saying “while this conflict is undeniably a deadly struggle between cultures, it is individuals who will determine the outcome.”

Another individual who has spoken on reason is Pope Benedict, who created quite a stir in 2006 when he said, “Not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God’s nature”.

This statement reflects a tradition that has come down for thousands of years, reflecting how reason itself is at war with the forces of chaos. Indeed, the story of civilization is the struggle of reason against chaos.

As it turns out, as I was working on this post Neoneocon also posted,

I believe what Harris may really be saying is that, in our emphasis on reason and tolerance, we must not forget to include a robust defense of our own culture and our own values. It is a balancing act; we don’t want to segue back into intolerance ourselves. But there is no other way to fight the forces of intolerance than to believe in and defend ourselves.

It all starts with the individual.

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Filed Under: Ayaan Hirsi Ali, books, Islam, religion

December 19, 2007 By Fausta

The Edwards love child, and today’s other stories (if there are any)

If you go to the link, National Enquirer World Exclusive: John Edwards Love Child Scandal! there’s nothing there. The Enquirer pulled it.
Update, 12:20PM: the article’s back up.

However, this being the internet, Doug Ross has capture and text, on the affair with Rielle Hunter.

Ace quotes from No Prisoners,

This is a perfect “one-two” punch by the Clintons. First, have some cutout mention that the Republicans might make hay out of a question about Obama “selling” drugs. Second, have a tabloid allege that Edwards has fathered a child while his loving, devoted, wife if dying of cancer. Since all sources are either being denied/fired or suspect, the damage is not enough to knock out either opponent – only weaken them. This way the two (Obama and Edwards) can split the anti-Hillary! vote but, both remain in the race (with reduced support) so she doesn’t have to face only one strong contender.

This is pure Clinton “magic”.

Dan Riehl has the video Hunter made for the Edwards campaign.

Politico has the story on Roger Altman, The Clintonite who owns National Enquirer

But hey, another married man claims to be the baby’s father.

Sing it, Diana!

Ooh, ooh, ooh….aaaahhh

You think that I don’t feel love
What I feel for you is real love
In other’s eyes I see reflected
A hurt, scorned, rejected

Love child
Never meant to be
Love Child
Born in poverty
Love Child
Never meant to be
Love Child
Take a look at me

Started my life
In a old, cold, run-down tenament slum (tenement slum)
My father left he never even married mama
I shared the guilt my mama knew
So afraid that others knew I had no name

This love we’re contemplatin’
Is worth the pain of waitin’
We’ll only end up hatin’
The child we may be creatin’

Love Child
Never meant to be
Love Child
(Scorned by) Society
Love Child
Always second best
Love Child
(Different from) Different from the rest

(Hold on hold on just a little bit longer) Mmmmm baby
(Hold on hold on just a little bit longer) Mmmmm baby

I started school
And a worn, torn dress that somebody threw out
(Somebody threw out)
I knew the way it felt to always live in doubt
To be without the simple things
So afraid my friends would see the guilt in me

Don’t think that I don’t need ya
Don’t think I don’t want to please ya
But no child of mine will be bearing
The name of shame I’ve been wearing

Love Child
Love Child
Never quite as good
Afraid, ashamed
Misunderstood

But I’ll always love you
Always love you

I’ll always love you
Always love you

I warned them and warned them and warned them.

——————————————————————-

Hillary wants to show she’s likable, so Bill goes on Entertainment Tonight while she stays in the helicopter.

The Anchores thinks Bill doesn’t want Hillary to win.

(Note to Hillary: If you want to project the image of the leader of the free world, don’t stand next to anyone who dwarfs you phisically.)

——————————————————————-

UNICEF’s picture of the year:

An 11-yr old girl being married to a pedophile.

Where is UNICEF?

——————————————————————-

Mass. Universal Care Faces Year-2 Reality

For those who like to believe there’s a free lunch, the table at Massachusetts’ universal health care scheme is being pared.
…
The Boston Globe reports on Massachusetts’ changes for 2008: “The changes will probably cut payments to doctors and hospitals, reduce choices for patients, and possibly increase how much patients have to pay.”

——————————————————————-

Via Maria, Dennis Prager writes about Secular Europe or Religious America?
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Filed Under: Democrats, health care, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, politics, religion, UN

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